Stonewall CEO to chair high-profile panel on the future of DEI

Stonewall Equality CEO Simon Blake OBE will chair a panel including senior business leaders to discuss the future of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) at Oriel College, Oxford University, on 4 June.

The event is part of Oriel College’s annual David N Lyon lecture series to facilitate discussion about issues related to the global LGBTQ+ community. The title of the event is ‘The Future of DEI: Recalibration not Retreat’.

Simon Blake OBE, CEO, Stonewall, said: “We are experiencing a period of significant turbulence globally – polarisation, regressive laws, curtailing freedoms and rising populism all serve to remind us that hard-won rights can and are being rolled back.

“It is an honour to chair this panel looking at the necessity – and the urgency – of sustained work that continues to move LGBTQ+ inclusion forwards, and how we can organise to recalibrate, resist and maintain the commitment to progress.”

The members of the panel chaired by Blake are:

• Dame Julia Hoggett DBE (CEO, London Stock Exchange plc, Europe’s largest stock market by value)
• Priscilla Mensah (disability advocate and public policy professional)
• Pedro Pina (Vice President Europe, Middle East and Africa, YouTube, the world’s leading video sharing platform)

In 2026, David Lyon, an LGBTQ+ Rights philanthropist, endowed the David N Lyon lecture series at Oriel College. He also made a significant donation to fund a new graduate scholarship, the David N. Lyon Scholarship in LGBTQ+ Rights. The scholarship sits in parallel with the scholarship he endowed in 2019 in The Politics of Sex and Gender Identities in Diverse Societies.

David Lyon said: “I am thrilled that such an eminent and high-profile panel can lead this discussion at Oriel. I know it will be a thought-provoking, engaging discussion on the future of DEI, at what is a pivotal moment on an issue that touches so many.

“This conversation is central to my aim of airing how we protect hard fought for rights, at a time when so much of our progress seems under threat.”

Lord Mendoza CBE, Provost, Oriel College, said: “We’re very grateful to our former student David Lyon for his continuing support of academic work relating to LGBTQ+ rights and the politics of sex and gender identities.

“As a college we are pleased to be able to lead research and facilitate dialogue on these subjects.”